Of course there's irony in all this because MM himself has become wealthyenough to qualify as 1% in the minds of many Occupiers, some of whomtaunted him to this effect when he came to visit.

The Citizens United 'Occupy Unmasked' (recent documentary) shows Michael'shouse and implies he's a hypocrite for having such a big one.

>> I addressed you condemning the Occupy movement, abd doing this your> using language suggesting that you deny the truth of what I said.>>

I was not "condemning the Occupy movement".

On the contrary, I'm objectively embedded in its anarchic leadership. Myfriends and I were deeply involved in providing food logistics, and helpedstart Occupy Portland on Oct 6. We took the park and set up the food tent. Everything followed from that.

Portland's Occupy was quite a bit bigger than most of the others andreceived a lot of attention. We also pulled out before we were pushed out,after a giant party in which many thousands of people streamed into town toregister their approval of what we had done. Most the main tents were gonethe next morning, though those wishing a confrontation with police got whatthey wanted too (it's a free country, we didn't force everyone to followus).

My guess is I was and am a few thousand percent more active in Occupy thanyou were or are. The people who helped make it happen are still my friendsand associates. We're still serving free meals to homeless people at theoriginal site near City Hall (on Tuesdays), with surplus going to Right toDream Too (a semi-permanent downtown village). I am integrally involved inthese actions.

I have posted about Occupy and #OPDX (Occupy Portland) many times on thisvery list. I know infinitely more about Occupy than you do, would be myworking assumption (using "infinitely" in its hyperbolic sense i.e. I'musing hyperbole).

As one of Occupy's many "leaders" I freely admit that the rhetoric of "1%versus 99%" is shorthand, not some scientific thesis. I think it wasbrilliant and fairly effective, but as a slogan only. Kind of like Haim's"Education Mafia" in that sense.

Or consider the atheist / humanist movement and its need for PR. "Goodwithout God" is their bumper sticker these days. PR is important. Peoplerally around slogans and mantras, I don't deny it. I'm not being cynical,just saying what's so. Advertising is important. Art moves us.

> Since Reagan, there is less and less of what could be called social> democracy in the US, and less and less of what I call capital> democracy or entrepreneurial democracy in the US.>>

It's not just your "conservatives" that are exclusively behind that trend Iwould say. In the Clinton years the stock market and real estate bubbleswere marketed to the "get rich quick" greedy middle classes. They packedhotel ballrooms to learn about flipping houses with "no money down". Bankswere complicit in this scheming and dreaming but not exclusively. This wasa "mom & pop" movement.

The "dot com bombers" made a lot of spurious claims for their vaporwarebusinesses, attracted venture capital, and squandered it on themselves. Many of these were young "liberal" type people. Those who bought the dotcom stocks were likewise often yuppies, happy to read the Village Voice andvote democratic.

The Clinton Era was a hay day for fiscal irresponsibility, while politicalTV became a circus. The office of president lost just about all of itsgravitas under Clinton, with the office of president even further degradingunder Bush, when he made fun of himself looking for WMDs and not findingthem, ridiculing the bankruptcy of the USA's indefensible "foreign policy".

You can blame presidents if you like, but I tend to think the Americanpeople bear some responsibility for recent war crimes. Their hypocrisyabout drugs and drug use is laying waste to the indigenous lifestyles of somany around the world even now. Their puritanical religious fanaticism isa deep ugliness in their culture.

What business have the Americans using herbicides and flame throwersagainst opium crops in Afghanistan? Who invited them to be judge and juryaround the world?

Clinton's pals (people like Sandy Berger) bombed the Chinese embassy inBelgrade, used cluster bombs over that city. They used a cruise missileagainst a veterinary pharmaceuticals plant in the Sudan (and settled behindthe scenes after the public stopped watching).

I think it all started going to hell after Eisenhower, when the decisionwas made to keep priming the prime contractors irrigation system and makemilitary buildup the name of the game. That's when the USA made a wrongturn and started to sell out. Eisenhower warned against doing that, butwent unheeded.

If you think Occupy is about making liberal Democrats seem like heros andconservative Republicans the demons, think again.

"No One for President" was the popular sign.

The US flag was never accepted as a symbol of Occupy Portland (I was at themeetings and know what I'm talking about). This was not a nationalistmovement. It's roots were in Arab Spring.

> On this latter type of democracy being destroyed by some of those in> the top 1%: Because the banks are less and less making capital> available via business loans to people not already rich to become> practicing capitalists - that is, to become business owners, the> percentage of the US population that own a business has been cut in> half since Reagan in the early 1980s began this destruction of capital> democracy or entrepreneurial democracy in the US.>>

Yeah, looks like those hypocrite USAers are probably incompetent topractice true democratic capitalism or whatever they wanna call it. Notsurprising. This isn't Sweden after all and never will be.

Ironic they use the rhetoric of "spreading democracy" when they're so badat it themselves.

I blame their weak STEM education, their weak math teachers. They're notgenetically stupid, just their culture makes them that way. Oh well, niceexperiment. Seems about over though eh? Or do you think there's stillhope?